How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair (23 page)

Early in the morning of the 4 August, in the stifling darkness, Nicolas, Jeanne and Rosalie were smuggled into the cardinal’s palace up the road. Rohan offered her practical assistance: a safe haven in his sovereign lands on the east bank of the Rhine, outside the jurisdiction of the French authorities. Jeanne, for whom flight and exile were never a consideration, insisted on sitting out her ostracism in Bar.

Rohan’s serenity at this juncture is hard to fathom. He did not interrogate Jeanne about the details of her contretemps or express any anxiety about how future payments from the queen for the necklace might be winkled out. Perhaps, after a few hours of brooding over Jeanne’s tale of grief, Rohan had finally accepted he had been
deceived, but did not wish to accuse Jeanne for fear of provoking some unpredictable rashness. But the opposite is equally plausible. The dismissal of Jeanne had severed the single ligature that connected Rohan with the queen. With their intermediary dispatched, Marie Antoinette would be compelled to receive Rohan in person and avow her esteem for him. The day he had anticipated for so long was now imminent. Cagliostro, flitting through the palace, knew exactly what was required of Rohan: turning over the La Mottes to the police and confessing all he knew to the king. Rohan again refused. ‘In this case’, said Cagliostro, ‘you have no one to turn to apart from God. He must
expedite the rest.’

Another uninvited guest arrived at seven o’clock in the morning: Bassenge, truffling for clues. He apologised in advance for the presumptuous question he was about to pose.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Rohan.

‘Monseigneur, are you entirely confident in the intermediary whom you have employed in the business of the necklace with the queen? I ask you this question because you informed me on a few occasions that there was an intermediary employed in this business.’

Rohan paused: ‘If I hesitate, it is not because I am untruthful, but to tell you only what you need to know.’ Raising his hands to the heavens, the cardinal declaimed, ‘See us, hear us, I have said nothing to you that is not completely true,’ and waved the jeweller towards the door.

After thirty-six hours of Rohan’s hospitality, the La Mottes announced they were leaving to stay with relatives. They returned to their apartment and burned all their papers. At two o’clock in the morning on 6 August, Villette rode east from Paris, his destination unknown. That evening, the lights in the apartment on the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles were snuffed out, the door bolted, and a coach bearing the La Mottes drove towards Bar-sur-Aube.

*
Campan gives the date of her conversation with Boehmer as 3 August, but the odd day, when writing thirty years later, is not significant.

†
Bassenge’s deposition mentions it had been Campan’s husband who had told the jewellers in July that the queen was baffled by the letter they had sent her.

*
Alan Williams in
The Police of Paris
has calculated that there could have been no more than 340 full-time spies. This is still a large number for, geographically, a relatively small city. And there were many more informants who were paid on an irregular basis.

12

‘I Will Pay for Everything’

R
OHAN’S PLATITUDES LEFT
Bassenge dissatisfied – and the jeweller remained suspicious of Jeanne too. Just before she abandoned Paris, he called again at her house.
Only Nicolas was around: his wife, he said, was at Versailles, owing too many personal obligations to the cardinal to abandon him now. Nicolas claimed to have only recently learned about the necklace. As far as he knew, it had been sold on to an unknown party.

Apart from admitting to theft, there was nothing else Nicolas could have said that would have alarmed Bassenge more. The necklace had always been intended to adorn the queen; now she would never be seen wearing it. But financial calculations shouldered out sentimental regrets. If Marie Antoinette had indeed sold the necklace, then she ought to be in a position to pay the first instalment. Why, then, had she postponed it until October? There was only one person left to question. On 5 August, Boehmer went to Versailles, seeking an audience with the queen. He was turned away. ‘He is mad,’ Marie Antoinette said. ‘I have nothing to say to him and
will not see him.’

None of the cardinal’s actions during this period suggests any anxiety. No family councils were convoked; no efforts to borrow money were made; no further mollifications of the jewellers attempted. As late as 10 August, Rohan told Sainte-James he was going to encourage the Boehmers to ask the queen again
about her debt. His vacillating trust in Jeanne seems to have settled into security. Whatever misgivings had sedimented within him were suppressed by a belief in his own invulnerability – events would defer to him like footmen. He still had in his possession the purchase agreement signed by the queen. True, its authenticity was in question, but at least it proved he had conducted himself in good faith.

Two or three days after the La Mottes’ departure, Marie Antoinette and her close circle began rehearsals at Trianon for a production of Beaumarchais’s
The Barber of Seville
. Marie Antoinette was to play Rosine, the ward of Bartholo and Count Almaviva’s beloved. During a break, the queen berated Campan, somewhat unfairly, for having sent Boehmer to her (Campan had actually told the jeweller to speak to Breteuil). Now, the lady-in-waiting pleaded with Marie Antoinette to speak to Boehmer:
‘It was of the utmost importance for her peace of mind. There was a plot afoot, of which she was unaware . . . it was a serious one, since documents signed by herself had been shown to people who had lent Boehmer money.’ The queen, though outraged, moved discreetly. A letter survives from one of Marie Antoinette’s lackeys to Boehmer, dated 8 August. It is marked ‘very urgent’, and the bearer was given the incentive of a tip of 18 sols if it was delivered before three o’clock. The note inside asks the jeweller to examine ‘a belt buckle that had
lost some diamonds’ – hardly the most pressing of matters – but the mention of lost diamonds winked at the true reason for the summons.

The journey by coach to Versailles, early in the morning on 9 August, gave Boehmer plenty of time to muster his thoughts. On arrival, Boehmer mapped out to Marie Antoinette the relationship, as he understood it, between the cardinal and the queen, and refused to accept the queen’s denials. ‘Madame, there is no longer time for feigning,’ he implored. ‘Condescend to admit that you have my necklace, and let some help be given to me, or my bankruptcy will bring the whole
business to light.’ Frustrated, the queen sent him away.

Like so many critical moments in this affair, Marie Antoinette’s reaction to her conversation with Boehmer is disputed. In a letter to her brother, the Emperor Joseph II, she wrote that the first person she spoke to was her husband. According to Madame Campan, however, the queen closeted herself with her confidant, Abbé Vermond, and Breteuil. Their advice, Campan would later decry, was coloured by their loathing of Rohan. Rohan’s conduct was so egregious, the pair counselled, that it required exemplary punishment. The queen declared ‘hideous vices must be unmasked, when the Roman purple and the title of Prince cloak a money-grubber,
a fraudster who dares to compromise the wife of his sovereign – France and all Europe
shall know it’.

On the 12 August, the jewellers gave Breteuil
a written statement: Rohan had approached them to buy the necklace in secret on behalf of a third party; he only told them that the queen was their customer after the deal had been concluded; and there was little further contact with Rohan until the queen demanded a reduction in price. At no point was Jeanne’s name mentioned. Now, for the first time, Louis XVI was informed.

The king and queen asked the maréchal de Soubise, the patriarch of the Rohan clan, to obtain a response to the Boehmers’ deposition from the cardinal. But when they sent for him on 14 August – a Sunday – he was not to be
found at home. Louis was insistent that the cardinal should be presented with the accusations as soon as possible but, mindful that he and his wife were interested parties, he secured witnesses to the confrontation. On Monday morning he requested the presence of Breteuil and the marquis de Miromesnil, the keeper of the seals (the minister of justice). Miromesnil, tapped on his shoulder while still at Mass, feared that an unexpected royal audience meant only one thing: his imminent sacking. The king asked the ministers for their advice on how to proceed. Miromesnil peevishly remarked that had Madame Cahouet de Villers, who had also forged the queen’s handwriting, been chastised publicly, future malefactors would have been deterred. Breteuil, for the time being, merely reiterated his belief in Rohan’s culpability.

Monday 15 August was the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Marie Antoinette’s patronal feast day. The gallery of Versailles, filled with primped court folk and city folk, pullulated with neck-craning and inconsequential talk:

‘Have you seen the king?’

‘Yes, he smiled.’

‘It’s true. He did smile.’

‘He appears happy.’

‘Woman! What’s it to you?’

Rohan was dressing in his regalia, a white rochet underneath his scarlet mozetta, preparing to celebrate Mass for the royal family. At ten o’clock one of Louis’s
garde du corps
arrived to escort him to the
king. Louis disapproved of the cardinal, quite apart from his wife’s loathing, and always avoided speaking to him whenever possible. Rohan must have known that he was not being invited for coffee and cake before the service.

As the queen could not even bear to look at Rohan, he was questioned by the king alone.
*
Louis asked the cardinal whether he had bought the necklace in the queen’s name.

‘It is true, sire,’ Rohan immediately confessed. ‘I have been tricked.’

Rohan read the Boehmers’ statement and did not contest its contents. This time addressing the queen directly, he again admitted he had been deceived. A copy of a letter written by him, which confirmed the authenticity of the signature and requested delivery of the necklace, had been attached to the jewellers’ deposition.

‘I don’t remember having written this letter, but I must have done since they have given you a copy,’ said Rohan, judging that compliance was wiser than contradiction. ‘I will pay,’ he added.

‘Do you have anything to say to justify this conduct and the guarantee you gave [about the signature]?’ said Louis. Rohan was, by now, visibly shaking, so Louis, Marie Antoinette and the two ministers left the room to allow him time to regain his equanimity and produce a written response. With Rohan in solitary contemplation, Louis
canvassed opinion on how best to proceed. He and Breteuil agreed that Rohan ought to be arrested. Miromesnil objected: it would be inappropriate to seize the cardinal while he was dressed in his pontifical vestments. The king shrugged dismissively.

Fifteen minutes later, Rohan brought them his justification: it contained a few scrawled lines restating his admission and his plea that he had been duped. Now, however, he mentioned Madame de La Motte, who had persuaded him that the queen wanted the necklace.

‘Where is this woman?’ asked the king.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rohan.
*

‘Do you have the necklace?’

‘The woman has it.’

Breteuil was instructed to have her arrested.

‘Where are the supposed letters of authorisation, written and signed by the queen?’ continued Louis.

‘I have them, sire,’ replied Rohan. ‘I now realise that they are forged. I will bring them to Your Majesty at Versailles.’

Louis was in no mood to trust Rohan: ‘Sir I can do nothing in a circumstance such as this other than seal your papers and take you into custody’ – the sealing of papers was standard procedure in a criminal case, to prevent the accused from destroying evidence. ‘The queen’s name is precious to me. It had been compromised and I must not neglect that.’

‘I beg Your Majesty’, said Rohan desperately, ‘not to make a scene over this, especially on a day like today, out of consideration for my family. I will pay for everything.’

‘I will try to console them as much as I can,’ responded Louis, unmoved. ‘I want you to have the chance to justify yourself. You will not pay anything. But I cannot, as either a king or a husband, let this matter drop, for the queen has been compromised in it. I am warning you that you will be arrested as you leave my rooms.’

Finally, the queen spoke: ‘It is extraordinary, monsieur, that you could have imagined for an instant that I would have charged an unknown person with a matter of this importance. Moreover, my opinion about you has been established for a long enough time – you should have known that I would never have given you an order like this.’

As Rohan strained to answer, the queen visibly lost patience (she later told a friend that she almost fell ill with horror and anger). The king, pained at his wife’s distemper, demanded that Rohan leave immediately. In almost the same breath he ordered Breteuil to apprehend him.

Outside the king’s apartment, the crowd, waiting for the royal party, rippled with something more than restlessness. From the way that Rohan had been briskly marched in and the length of time he had been kept, they concluded that his business was extraordinary. The cardinal lingered in the Salon de l’Oeil de Boeuf, a gilt and stucco antechamber that was overseen by a large, oculate window. Veronese’s
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
hung ominously on one of the walls. As Breteuil emerged, Rohan asked if they could remain there until the gawkers had dispersed; or, he suggested, Breteuil could personally guard him as they walked through the palace, as though discussing some affair of state, so that he might be spared the shame of detention in public. While he was pestering the baron, the pair emerged in the gallery, where the greatest number of onlookers had assembled. Without answering, Breteuil turned to the nearest guard and, his voice snapping for attention, declaimed: ‘The king orders you, monsieur, to arrest the cardinal.’